Sisters

These three grow closer and closer as the days pass.

Today they had such a blast having a tea party all together with Abrie on the bottom bunk. Baby girl loves going to their room, which will eventually (probably sooner than later) be room for all three together. I'm just waiting on the screaming in the night to wane a bit before moving her over with her big sissys! But, anyway they have so much fun playing on the bottom bunk together. And, Abrie of course loves to climb the stairs. So, Faith and Maddie thought it was funny to try and get her to the "club" by playing songs to her on their instruments. It was quite a riot-- Faith on the harmonica!

Princess Pottery Party

Today was a fun day on what would have otherwise probably been another boring winter day.

We went to Tia Rosa's work (eventually one day maybe she'll be Aunt Steph, but for now I love that these girls still stick by the nickname I Christened her with back when Maddie was a little baby) at her side job, a place called 'Jen's Pottery Den.' Today was a Princess Pottery day, which combined 2 hours of crafting 4 different things and princess themes; in other words, this was an awesome time for both Maddie and Faith.

One of the helper girls was even dressed up as Pocahontas, who happens to right now be their idol. Boy, were they pleased! I took their Aurora and Snow White dresses, and they were so happy to be "so fancy" for the afternoon. They got their cheeks painted, they got to paint an awesome pottery light for their room, they fashioned a princess hat, wand, and necklace, and had some great snacks. Maddie just loved the red velvet cakes that they served and they loved the pretzel princess wands, which we have made before. The owner of the place, Jen, was very nice too and so creative with what they did. She had each of the girls help put a story together using the fun that is Mad Libs. They thought the story was hilarious, and kept doing their fake laugh over and over again.

And, our little Beeba Show was not to be outdone. She and Daddy had a little "date" together. Dan took her over to Oregon Dairy (which used to be a favorite of ours when Cran was a tiny baby and we lived in Lancaster with Nene for those 2 months) and he said she loved it. She saw the cows and the deer, and they picked up some delicious apple sausage. She was quite happy to see me, but she and Daddy had a great time together.

Shamu

Big girls have been so sad about everything that happened at Sea World on Wednesday.

Oh, how they adore their killer whales. Faith still affectionately refers to them all as "Amu" and they both love what they call 'Free William' (as in, 'Free Willy'). Not to mention, some of their favorite parts of "Blue Planet" and "Planet Earth" (they call these their 'science lessons') are any clips with killer whales, even the ones where they show them hunting baby sea lions off the coast of Argentina. They just loved seeing them at Sea World last year and loved the 'Believe' show there in Orlando.

They were both so sad to hear about the trainer being drowned.

Highlights

Baby girl is 10 months old today. Double digits. Ridiculous!

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Big girls' favorite movie these days is 'Pocahontas.' They are obsessed. Faith says John Smith is "sooo handsome" and then pretends to fall over in love.

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We have "set-up's" everywhere in this house. We have been instructed to not take down or clean up any of these set-up's. I just love set-up's. It is amazing to me how hard they work on putting everything just-so. The ponies are downstairs ready for a talent show and parade tomorrow morning, and upstairs we've got some princess dolls sleeping in Abrie's Thumper blocks. It's funny too how often Abrie now crawls over to see what they're doing, and more often than not will sit and "play" with them too. I can already see a glimmer of how it will be watching all three sitting peacefully and playing. I think it will be sooner than later, and it's exciting.

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In lieu of the impending snowfall that we are supposed to get tomorrow, a friend and I went to the museum this morning thanks to the library's free museum pass. These girlies just love that museum. We took a lunch and had a really nice time, and they ran on the paths and over the bridges afterwards. Considering it's going to be nasty starting tomorrow, I wanted to spend as much of the day as possible outside.

Valentine's Party

We were supposed to have a Valentine's party at a friend's house the weekend of Valentine's Day, but because of the blizzard, it was postponed. So we had it here today instead.

Aside from cousins, these girls only have a handful of friends. But these friends are near and dear to our hearts and are all good friends. Maddie has two little girl friends from her dance class last year- Veronica and Ciara- that both she and Faith really like. We rarely get to see them, but did do a Halloween party at Veronica's house and decided to do something here for Valentine's.

I like this kind of stuff because the girlies get to help with all the preparations which they enjoy. We got everything for 75% off at Target which was also another great part about it! Maddie and Faith made candies and lollipops, they helped make the princess punch (which wasn't as much of a hit as it was at Maddie's birthday party-- of course, Maddie loves it though!), the food, and they loved making Valentine's for everyone including Abrie. One of my favorite Valentine's was the one Maddie made for Dan which was a Carl valentine from the movie 'Up,' and when I asked her why she chose that one she said "because sometimes Daddy is grumpy and loves to crack his back." Hahaha.

Girlies had a fun time and made little foam mailboxes together which was a hit. Then they "delivered" their Valentine's (it was a trip watching Faith with her mailbox that had glue dripping from every angle!) and got all their little favors. They had a blast, and Abrie was a hit with her lightning-fast crawling and climbing abilities. Of course, the girl is totally a Momma and Daddy's girl and won't go with ANYone and bats her little eyes while curled up into my shoulder. She's my precious.

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Totally unrelated, but these girls love wearing dresses. I like to put Abrie in dresses, and if Maddie and Faith see that they're not wearing a dress when Abrie is, they get upset. They want to wear a dress every single day! I don't remember enjoying wearing dresses as much as they do. They are too funny.

Abrie has succumbed to the girlie's cold that they started earlier this week. Baby girl has a runny nose, but is as happy as a little clam.

The three of them have a blast these days when Abrie is climbing the stairs. Both Maddie and Faith start running to the stairs when they see Abrie headed in that direction and want her to climb under their legs. They call it "London Bridge!" time. Abrie hasn't mastered clapping, but she does this little dance while waving with Hitler type motions and you can tell she is beaming with pride. It's really cute. And, then she crawls as fast as possible into one of her favorite rooms- Maddie and Faith's room. They love it! She heads straight for their bed and loves to crawl onto the mattress and then put her little head down on their pillows. Maddie and Faith call this their 'sleepover.' It's so fun to watch them playing so sweetly.

Busy few weeks

Computer was out of service for over a week, and just now getting back to what I had been working on project-wise before I decided to break our computer. Besides the computer problems, we were also all sick and managed to have two ridiculously large snowstorms in this span of two weeks.

Dan was stranded at work for two days during the second big snowstorm. It was fun being with my girls by ourselves, and yet a lot of work at the same time. But, we managed and still had fun at that which is what counts. Girlies have been busy "painting" the snow which is our new fun thing to do. Abrielle has been a riot lately. She looks so irresistible with her two little bottom teeth, and the girl manages to sneak up the stairs the second you are not keeping a hawk's eye view over her. She always has the sneakiest face too.

So much for vacation

We had been planning for quite some time to take the girlies to Disney this month. That didn't happen because our lovely roof started showing signs of leaking in October. Turned out to be the sunlight in the bathroom and not the roof, but it's still an expensive fix.

Then we had planned on taking a mini-vacation to Baltimore, and that was the reason for Dan being off this week. We had planned on leaving yesterday and seeing the aquarium and the awesome children's museum that we love there, and seeing the Disney on Ice show there on Friday. We figured Disney on Ice was better than no Disney at all. Turns out we will have to try for the Disney Princesses on Ice show coming here in April because of the story that is our life.

I started feeling some sort of strange feeling behind my ears yesterday. No idea what it is, but it eventually led to my entire throat being swollen by 9pm last night. My lymph glands are about the size of tennis balls, and the best way I can describe my appearance is to picture Joey from 'Friend's' when he was wearing the "fat suit" in one episode. If I didn't already like looking in the mirror before last night, it's even more unsightly now. I think my face has gained about 5 pounds! I did go to the doctor this afternoon, and they immediately sent me to the lab for bloodwork. Hopefully they'll tell me something soon, and I'm hopeful this swelling goes away very soon. It's quite uncomfortable.. not to mention, unsightly.

If my condition were not enough, they are also calling for about a foot of snow starting tomorrow afternoon. The Baltimore trip just wasn't meant to be. Hopefully we can still manage to get out to Harrisburg tomorrow to take the girls to a science museum that looks pretty cool, and if not we'll just have to wait for the inevitable snow tubing and sledding fun that should be Saturday for these little ladies.

Here and there

I used to be on the ball when it comes to picture taking, photo uploading, and photo editing. But, lately, I find that I don't have the time or the energy to do that all on a daily basis! I'm hoping springtime will kick my butt back into gear in regards to all of that!

In the meantime, little ladies have not been lacking in fun stories and funny things that they do on a daily basis. They are too much fun. In the Abrielle department my new favorite quote for her is "You are so easy to love in the daytime, and a little harder to love in the night." The joys of teething have set her back substantially in the sleeping department!! Dan is actually off this week, so he's been here to witness firsthand the incessant "Mooooooommmmmma" and her new one (which I personally love) "M, M, M, M!" (yep, she calls me with an initial) at all hours of the night. It's been quite nice to have him here to help, but yet he has the patience of a saint when it comes to the nighttime (which I will admit I do not have, then again, he is never here in the nights so I suppose that is why) and so I worry that he will be making it even harder for me when he does go back to work on Sunday night. She is such a darling little thing in her crib in the mornings though, standing up and waiting for her big sisters and I to come in and get her. Those little smiles are too much. Little stinker's been on the move even moreso lately also, and she climbed all 13 stairs yesterday by herself (with me right behind her of course).

Maddie is the little narrator in our house. She cracks me up with the way she narrates in third person when she plays. She plays the parts of whatever character she is playing with Faith at any given moment, but also tells the feelings and the the story at the same time. Today she was talking about Giselle from 'Enchanted' and saying "and Giselle so gladly accepted her prince's proposal. She danced away on her lofty feet and knew that this was true love." She is never lacking in the adjective department, and loves describing things to a 'T' although sometimes I don't know where she comes up with the descriptions! It's quite funny. The girl is a hopeless romantic too-- at the ripe ol' age of 5. The other day for dessert Dan told me that he picked out a custard donut for me at Giant, and I was laughing and telling him how much I don't like those donuts. Maddie goes "well, what we should do is rewind time so you guys can get married again and make this a better match!" Hahaha.

Faith keeps getting funnier by the day. There's always something else that she does every day that makes everybody laugh to the point of tears. Faith is forever the best little sister and best big sister. I never grow tired of watching Maddie and Faith together-- they are absolutely inseparable. They do everything together, and learn from each other. Faith was showing a little boy today in Maddie's dance class about the arabesques and pirouettes that she can do, and I was amazed that she knew the proper word for them and how to do each move perfectly. She learns it all from Maddie. And, at the same time, Faith and Abrie are such buddies. Faith is always wanting to go first for her "Beeba Show" in the mornings and after Abrie's naps. I don't want to hasten Abrie getting older, but I just love watching the two of them with each passing day. The three of them for that matter.